AUTHOR’S NOTE: As inquisitive beings we are always looking for insights that will aid us in understanding our inherent strengths and weaknesses. Although I don’t use the “Tree of Life” spread often, here is a version that employs tarot cards to create a “power profile” showing the relative potency of eleven different aspects of our orientation to the world – spiritual, psychological and physical.

This spread applies the planetary energies associated with the sephiroth (including the “hidden” sephira Da’ath) using my personal system of correspondences. Note that in the position titles I’m acknowledging both the Qabalistic qualities of the spheres and the classical planets, and the “higher octave” concept of esoteric astrology for the modern planets: Uranus is the “higher octave” of Mercury; Neptune is the “higher octave” of Venus; and Pluto is the “higher octave” of Mars.*

Use of the spread is straightforward. Shuffle a tarot deck while concentrating on your innate “power structure,” then deal eleven cards from top to bottom in the standard “order of emanation” for the sephiroth. (I treat Da’ath as “11.”) The alignment or misalignment of the astrological factors associated with the cards to those of the sephirotic planets will indicate whether the power will flow uneventfully or misbehave.

For the pip cards in this comparison, use the element of the suit and the Chaldean planet for each card; for the court cards, just use the suits; for the trump cards, use the elements represented by the twelve signs, seven planets and three “primes. (Reversals may be used to suggest subtler forms of the applicable influences.)

Read these positions as showing fields of expression for the planetary powers signified by the titles, with the resident cards furnishing a more refined and individualized “typology.” (A cursory study of the Tree of Life will be useful in making sense of this array.)

By way of illustration, here is my personal “power profile.”

Right off the top, nine of the eleven cards are reversed, suggesting that my “power base” has gone into hibernation and is now more intermittent than persistent (to be honest, at my age I don’t really miss its strident presence). Despite the fact that I’ve been an athlete and an avid outdoorsman for most of my life, those activities are now mostly a fond memory. I’ve never been much of an “alpha-male” type but I did recently update my metaphysical resume to read: “I’m the only whiskey-drinkin’, pickup-drivin’, ball-cap-wearin’, fly-fishin’, kayak-paddlin’, alpine skiin’, blues-music-listenin,’ tarot-card-readin’, horoscope-castin’, crystal-ball-gazin’, pendulum-swingin’, talisman-slingin’, hexagram-wieldin’, grey-bearded, iconoclastic, half-Canadian geomancer you’re ever likely to meet.”

There are no particularly demanding cards here with the possible exception of that hard-as-nails reversed Justice in the Sun position. The lady is hemmed in by Fire and will probably vent her irritation on the Charioteer and the Fool. (Somebody once told me they would never want to get into an argument with me.) Fire is prominent but not overbearing due to the reversals; Air and Water are meager and Earth is totally absent (except for its elemental connection to the Page of Wands). Of all the cards, the 6 of Swords in the sphere of Uranus (apart from its reversal) is the most well-favored since it corresponds to Mercury in Aquarius; Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury and Aquarius is its modern sign of rulership. It suggests a powerful intuitive faculty that is more restrained than forthright. (I won’t be doing any clairvoyant parlor tricks.)

The whole thing is redolent of the deranged circus imagery in the Archibald MacLeish poem The End of the World. The reversed Moon in the Pluto position casts a dusky pall over the whole thing, while the Fool reversed in the Moon position cavorts like a trained monkey on the King of Wands’ shoulder, trying to get a rise out of him, and the Chariot reversed plays strange, discordant calliope music in the Venus position (I’m reminded of the Sultan’s calliope in Baron Munchausen). The only placement that anchors me is that King holding down the Earth position; I’m feeling strong and centered . . . as long as I can just sit down and watch the world go by. At least the sedate King gets an occasional boost from the energetic Page of Wands in the Saturn position (but I wouldn’t count on the rest). I’ll have to examine all of this more closely before I decide what it means in practical terms.

*A Footnote Regarding the “Trans-Saturnian” Planets:

There are a couple of interesting convergences here: Uranus is considered the ruler of astrology and seems like a reasonable stand-in for the traditional Wheel of the Zodiac in Chockmah while also being the mythological father of Saturn in Binah; Pluto’s elongated orbit takes it outside the asteroid belt, making it something of a “cosmic messenger” similar to Mercury’s “solar messenger” and a good counterpart for the Primum Mobile in Kether; and – although Aleister Crowley had a different opinion – nebulous Neptune seems well-suited to the equally amorphous Da’ath.